章 28: Chapter 26 Hot Pot
"Brother Qin, don't be scared then."
"Come on, I'm not scared."
Qin Jianzhong extended his hand and sat in front of her.
Li Pan pursed her lips, and as she extended her hand, a brown wood vine appeared and slowly wrapped around Qin Jianzhong's arm, emitting a pale green glow.
Qin Jianzhong only felt a slight heat as if sweating from the heat, and his whole body was very comfortable.
After a while, Li Pan retracted the wood vine.
"That should do it, the old injuries were numerous, but they shouldn't be a problem now."
Xue Dong watched Qin Jianzhong get up, move around a bit, and even pinched a thorn.
"I feel better than before, using superpower doesn't have that previous stagnation, that need to force it. Now it flows smoothly, and I feel light all over."
Qin Jianzhong felt very good.
"Brother, you try too."
"Alright."
Li Pan then mimicked the process and treated Xue Dong as well.
Xue Dong felt the same as Qin Jianzhong, he even thought he might soon advance to high-level Fire Power.
"That's amazing."
He murmured, seemingly understanding the Base Commander's tension and expectations.
"The Star Tree is incredible, it's still young and needs to grow. When it matures, it will be even more formidable."
Li Pan spoke with pride, feeling fortunate and delighted to have awakened such a powerful Companion Spirit Plant.
A Companion Spirit Plant and its master are bound for life, sharing honor and disgrace, life and death. If the master dislikes their Spirit Plant, thinking it's inferior, the Spirit Plant's innate skill might become inhibited or even lose the ability to advance.
But conversely, mutual liking and support, growing together is like having divine assistance.
Typically, a high-level Wood Power user or other powerful superpower users are heavily protected by the base, and it is very difficult to meet them in person.
Xue Dong and Qin Jianzhong, after years of battling, had many minor and major injuries which were all cleared up now, restoring them to their peak condition, which is beneficial for future advancements.
"Hungry right? Let's eat, I made breakfast and was waiting for you to come down."
Xue Dong snapped back to reality and quickly invited Qin Jianzhong to bring the food over.
The living room in the new house had a rectangular pine table in the middle with long benches, simple yet practical.
The walls were built with a large fireplace with bricks, useful for lighting a fire in the winter. Opposite the fireplace was a semi-circular sofa, behind the sofa was the table, and diagonally across near the wall was a fire kang which one could sleep on during winter. It wouldn't be cold due to the fireplace, and in summer, everyone could sleep in their own rooms.
For breakfast, there were vegetable pancakes, cornmeal porridge, roasted sweet potatoes, salty eggs, and freshly fried vegetables.
"It's raining and inconvenient to keep going outside. How about hot pot tonight? We still have beef bones and beef."
Looking at the cool rain, Li Pan craved a hot pot, something luxurious she hadn't enjoyed for many years.
"Sure, I'll go get the meat to thaw."
"I'll check on the chickens, ducks, and geese."
Qin Jianzhong went to check on the livestock. Since it was raining, the cattle and sheep couldn't be grazed and had to be fed in their pens.
"I'll go check the fields. It's almost harvest time, we absolutely can't have any mishaps."
Li Pan put on a raincoat, rain pants, and boots, and took a rainproof plastic bag, preparing to head out.
"Wait for me a moment, I'll go with you. I need to take Wolf King for a patrol."
"Okay."
Xue Dong took out the meat to thaw and the bones to soak in water for making bone soup later, and also planned to take out a chunk of butter to melt for the hot pot base.
"Brother, let's render some lard when we come back."
"I've taken it out, will fix it in a moment."
The two of them went to the field together, Li Pan checked all the crops, which weren't too bad. The corn had already formed ears and could now be picked as fresh corn, while the ripe ones were old corn that could be ground into cornmeal.
Li Pan carried a basket on her back and picked some fresh corn to cook and eat, which was not a bad idea.
There were frogs in the field, capable of eating all the insects clean, which saved her a lot of trouble.
By channeling her superpower around the field in a circle, the tasks had become very simple and easy for her after her superpower had been upgraded.
She went to check on the sugarcane field and the orchard one by one, channeling some superpower and checking the drainage ditches to ensure they were clear for easy water drainage.
In the vegetable garden, she picked some vegetables to have hotpot for dinner; although there weren't many varieties, there were enough vegetables.
The watermelons had grown bigger and the strawberries were edible now; she picked some ripe ones to take home, along with some lettuce and leafy greens for wrapping meat.
Seeing no issues in the fields, she then walked home.
Back home, the yard still had dirt paths, as there were not enough green bricks to pave the yard. A small area by the front door had been paved, and they could start making bricks after a few days when the rain stopped.
She entered the house, took off her raincoat, and hung it on a hook by the door; their house had a small shade pavilion for drinking tea at the entrance on the first floor, a small area extending from the main door.
There were cabinets at the door for placing raincoats and the like, as well as hook racks and utility cabinets for storing tools, which was convenient. On summer days, one could sit at the door and drink tea, and there was even a space in the corner for storing firewood.
The yard also had a special firewood shed, built of green bricks, a rather large room that had already started to be filled with firewood.
Each evening during their patrol, Xue Dong and Qin Jianzhong would carry tools and a basket to gather resources from the mountain and incidentally cut down oddly growing trees to bring back and dry for firewood.
Firewood had to be prepared in advance; it couldn't be chopped and burned immediately as the moist wood produced too much smoke, making the house unbearable. They prepared it in advance during the summer and stored it in the firewood shed. By the end of summer, the wood was dry and free of moisture, making it suitable for use in winter.
Xue Dong and Qin Jianzhong went on patrol to check on the poultry and animals.
In the afternoon, Li Pan put on her raincoat again and went back to the field to channel another burst of superpower; ensuring twice a day that the crops grew vigorously and that not a moment was wasted.
In the afternoon, the Wolf King returned with the wolf pack from their patrol.
"Wolf King, why don't you guys sleep in the next plank house tonight? The cubs are cold."
"Okay."
Li Pan lit the stove to boil pork lard. There were still over two thousand pounds of pork left. She cut off the fat to render some lard, which when used for cooking added a nice flavor, providing some fat and oil.
Previously, the beef didn't have much fat, so she only rendered a small jar of beef lard, which she had already cut into pieces and packaged. She would just throw a piece in when cooking.
First, she cut the pork backfat and fat into chunks, washed them in hot water to clean and prepare them, then added water into the pot with slices of ginger, green onions, and a bit of Sichuan peppercorn to blanch the pork lard to remove the gamey taste.
This was wild pork, not domestic, and so had a stronger taste, requiring several additional steps to deodorize.
She then put the blanched pork lard in another large iron pot, added water and boiled it, as usual, adding onion sections, Sichuan peppercorn, cinnamon, and other spices to eliminate any odors.
Adding water when rendering the lard helped control the temperature, preventing the oil from burning.
When the fat started turning a bit yellow, she filtered out the oil. The pork cracklings left behind could be used to make pancakes.
As she boiled pot after pot of lard, Li Pan stored the rendered pork lard in four large jars; it looked very good, a tempting snow-white color.
After it cooled, she stored it in her own space to prevent spoilage as the weather was somewhat hot.
She cleaned the pot, heated it up and added beef lard to prepare the base for the hotpot they were going to eat.
Xue Dong came back, having gathered quite a lot of Sichuan peppercorns to dry. On rainy days when there was less to do, he could go to the plank house to smoke cured meat.
"I'll cook, you go wash the vegetables."
Li Pan tied a scarf around him, picking up wolf cubs that were wandering back and forth at their feet, enticed by the aroma of pork lard.
She mixed some of the oil cracklings with steamed potatoes and sweet potatoes, added some sliced radishes and vegetables, and poured in the leftover cornmeal batter from the morning into two large basins which she placed in the living room for the two cubs.
"Eat up, you little gluttons."
Yue Ying and Yue Xin buried their heads in the bowls, eating deliciously.
Li Pan went to wash the vegetables, and while Xue Dong was finishing the base, she still had to prepare the pig's feed and the wolves' food. Their hotpot was too spicy for the wolves to eat; they could eat some grilled meat, and she also boiled some meat porridge with vegetables and other things, as the wolf pack liked this way of eating.
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